North Dakota’s “Doug Love” Is Back On The Rise!

Governor Doug Burgum is seen in the photo pulling out the North Dakota checkbook to send money to 500 thousand of his favorite folks. Hopefully the kind of folks that vote.

Like a phoenix from the ashes, Doug is back on the rise by paying off half a million North Dakotans.

Doug will most likely never get back to his pre-pandemic popularity. A lot of feelings have been hurt and Burgum just can't buy his way into our good graces. How about instead of buying his way back on your good side, what if he played the good Republican and instead gave you "tax relief" to get back on your good side?

Now whose just a "Republican in name only"?

This from the Office of the Governor earlier this month.

Gov. Doug Burgum signed legislation to provide an estimated $211 million in income tax relief over the next two years by eliminating the state income tax bill for approximately 300,000 North Dakota taxpayers and providing partial relief to another 200,000 taxpayers. The tax relief fulfills a major piece of the governor’s Accelerate ND plan for the Legislature’s special session, which adjourned today.

Now it certainly wasn't the Governor's actions alone, House Bill 1515 was introduced by the Capital City's own Representative Pat Heinert of Bismarck!  It basically shakes down to an income tax credit of $350 per year for resident individual income taxpayers or doubled to $700 if filing jointly.

It's tax relief for both 2021 and 2022.

What did we find more change in the couch?  Kinda.  In the 2019-21 biennium the Legislature came up $412 million dollars long in the general fund balance. So to the workers go the spoils.  "Workers" being a keyword here as the tax relief is contingent upon your tax filing.  Let's hear from the Governor...

"Our shared approach of conservative fiscal management has allowed us to put money back into the pockets of North Dakotans who kept working through the pandemic and supported our economic recovery, which benefits us all.”

So if you see Doug running victory laps around the Capitol grounds just remember the bill passed the House 92-0 and the Senate 40-7 so they should get a little love as well come tax time.